Risk
Posted by Cassia on March 12, 1998 at 12:54:03:
In response to debtors' prisons, written by Clarence on March 10, 1998 at 19:24:09
] I wonder how many folks would have credit problems and be declaring bankruptcy leaving their creditors high and dry if there were debtor's prisons and workhouses such as those in oldern England.
I don't know. Consider that part of the reason the US was much more able to capitalise on the Industrial Revolution was the looser credit and bankruptcy laws in the US. In England, where even relatively small shareholder could be held responsible for all of the debt incurred by a corporation, people were too risk adverse to invest the sums necesssary to build many large projects and we lost a good deal of the advantage we had be getting there first. In abaling people to take finaicial risks and retain the abiltiy is part of the reason the street of America were said to be paved with gold.
That's not to say that I don't believe people shouldn't be more careful with credit, all of us should be. Then again, financial discline isn't really more encouraged than any other kind of discipline.
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